Hydrophilic Transformations in Polyhydroxyalkanoates

Some hydrophilic transformations in polyhydroxyalkanoates were assessed in this study. It was proved that polyhydroxybutyrate-graft-polyvinylacetate copolymers are more hydrophilic than polyhydroxybutyrate and exhibit a strong dependence between hydrophilicity and polyvinylacetate content in the copolymers. Water wettability of some polyhydroxyalkanoates was improved by H+ (300 keV, flux ranging from 1011 to 5 × 1013 ions/cm2), Ag+ (20 keV, fluences ranging from 1014 to 1016 ions/ cm2), and Na+ (25 and 12.5 keV to 5 × 1015 ions/cm2) implantation experiments. Additionally, surface properties were characterized by means of water drop contact angle, atomic force microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and infrared spectroscopy. The influence of surface morphology on the wettability was discussed.